Investors in Partners Group's $14.6 billion US evergreen asked for $2.2 billion back in the third quarter, and the fund paid $728 million, a third. Meanwhile, NB Private Equity sold five co-investment stakes at 7% below their December value, and OneMonroe into a continuation vehicle at 11% above it. In addition, Ares raised $2.6 billion for secondaries in the quarter and invested $1.1 billion, a third less than a year earlier.

The tape

• DEAL  57 Stars, a Washington fund of funds, sold its Actis Africa 3 and Actis India 3 stakes to OMO Capital, a Hong Kong tail-end buyer.
• DEAL  Brookfield agreed to sell an indirect minority stake in La Trobe Financial, its A$27 billion Australian credit manager, to OMERS, terms undisclosed.
• FUND  Melange Capital, the anchor of EnCap's $3.5 billion minerals vehicle, has raised $724 million from 126 investors for its second energy secondaries fund.
• DATA  Gen II, the fund administrator, moves transfers of fund stakes online from November with Funded Partner Transfers, buyer's file and seller's signature on one platform.
• FILING  General Atlantic filed on Thursday, with Evercore, for the rollover vehicle of the second Argus Media fund that Leonard Green leads, nothing raised yet.
•  

Partners Group's US fund paid a third

Partners Group's largest US evergreen now has a queue of exit requests three times what it pays out in a quarter. Its investors tendered units worth $2.21 billion in the offer that closed on 26 August, the filing of Thursday shows. Those units were worth 15% of net assets, after about 6% in the second quarter, the Financial Times reported on Friday in a story Private Equity Wire relayed. Of them, the fund bought back $728 million at their 30 September value, which is 5% of its net assets. So each investor who asked out received a third of the amount, in promissory notes, and keeps the rest in the fund. The fund's manager told the Financial Times that the requests were "consistent with guidance issued in July".

The fund is the Baar firm's flagship for US private investors, with $14.6 billion of net assets at 31 August. It holds private equity funds, secondaries and direct stakes. Its investors can only leave through a quarterly offer for 5% of its units. The fund takes the units pro rata when more is asked. A year ago investors asked for far less than that limit. They tendered $590 million for the December offer and $527 million for March, and the fund paid both in full. In June they tendered $915 million and the fund paid $758 million, or 83%. The third quarter's $2.21 billion is more than the fund paid out in the four previous offers together.

Requests to Partners Group's US fund more than doubled in a quarter, and the payout stayed at 5% of net assets

Units tendered and units bought back at each offer, $m, by the quarter-end the price was set at

Source: Partners Group Private Equity (Master Fund), LLC, tender offer results filed with the SEC on 10 March, 18 May, 29 July and 29 October 2026.

The next offer opened on Thursday, runs to 27 November and pays 5% of the fund at its 31 December value, the terms show. For instance, an investor who tendered $100 of units on 26 August received $33 of notes and still holds $67. If that investor tenders again, and everyone else in the queue does the same, the fund faces $1.5 billion of repeat requests. Its payout would be about $730 million, in this example.

The queue matters to this market because of what the fund may sell to pay it. One route to such selling is the one Partners Group took with its European flagship, in three steps. First, in October it moved four buyout fund stakes of its gated European fund into a vehicle called GVD Access, as read here on 19 October. That fund is the €6.6 billion Global Value SICAV.

Second, the SICAV's shareholders vote in the week of 9 November on splitting the fund in two. One half would be a distributing fund that sells older stakes to pay those who want out. Its new share classes moved today to a 2.5% quarterly redemption threshold, half the old one. The threshold came with fee cuts of 25 to 75 basis points, announced on 20 October, as read here on 21 October. Third, Bloomberg reported on 7 October that the same split may extend to the US fund, as read here on 9 October.

If the US fund takes that route, a distributing sub-fund with a bill of about $730 million a quarter becomes a seller of fund stakes. Such stakes fetched 91% of value for buyout funds in the first half, by Jefferies' count. If it does not, the queue clears at 5% a quarter plus whatever the funds it holds distribute.

NBPE got 93% for stakes, 111% for OneMonroe

A listed seller, NB Private Equity Partners, has put two prices on its book in one morning. The stakes it sold outright went for less than the company it sold into a continuation vehicle. It sold three co-investments in full and two in part to third-party buyers for $81 million, it said on Friday. That price was 7% below their value at 31 December 2025, in transactions that Neuberger Berman led. The same announcement says it sold OneMonroe, its third-largest holding, to a GP-led continuation vehicle for $65.5 million, 11% above its December value.

NBPE is Neuberger Berman's London-listed trust, with $1.1 billion of net assets, almost all of it in direct co-investments alongside other sponsors. Its shares trade about 26% below net asset value, and Saba Capital disclosed a 5.1% stake on 6 October, as read here on 9 October. NBPE has answered Saba with sales and buybacks. It has signed $299 million of exits this year, a quarter of its opening portfolio. It has also bought back $112 million of shares at an average discount of 29%. Two of those exits, Osaic and Solace, went into continuation vehicles at prices that "often" sit below carrying value, as read here on 28 September.

The two prices measure two different things. The first, a co-investment stake sold to a third party, carries fee terms the buyer cannot be sure to keep. That risk is why Blackstone paid about 80% of value for part of a $1.3 billion co-investment portfolio, as read here on Wednesday. By comparison, NBPE's five stakes went at 93%, after returning 3.0 times cost. OneMonroe, by contrast, went to a vehicle run by its own sponsor, at a price set by the new investors that sponsor found.

The sponsor behind that vehicle is AEA Investors, the New York mid-market firm. AEA filed on 22 September for a vehicle called AEA OMN CF, with Evercore as placement agent, as read here on 24 September. That filing is most probably the vehicle NBPE sold into, though Friday's announcement names neither the vehicle nor its lead investor. Nor does it say whether NBPE rolled any of its 2021 investment.

The money goes to shareholders first, because NBPE has $58 million left in its buyback programme. That programme and the plan behind it come to a capital markets day on 5 November. There NBPE will show the "exit ready" companies that it says could sell in the next six to twelve months.

Ares raised more for secondaries and bought less

Ares now raises money for secondaries faster than it invests it, and three other listed managers have just said the same of their own lines. Its Secondaries Group took $2.6 billion of new commitments in the third quarter, against $1.7 billion in the second, its presentation of Thursday shows. It invested $1.1 billion, 31% less than a year earlier. Its assets reached $46.3 billion, 21% more than a year earlier.

Ares is the Los Angeles manager that bought Landmark Partners in 2021, and it now runs secondaries in four asset classes. Its largest raise of the quarter went to the structured solutions fund. That fund closed at $4.2 billion on 1 October, as read here on 2 October. It took $1.4 billion of the $2.0 billion raised for private equity secondaries. Its chief executive Michael Arougheti told analysts on Thursday that secondaries assets had "grown approximately 70% over the past 2 years". He added that Ares is "launching an infrastructure fund that focuses solely on GP-led transactions", the transcript shows. He also said the tenth real estate secondaries fund "is expected to complete its first close by year-end". That close would be more than half of its $2.5 billion target.

Ares is adding a GP-led fund to the $7.2bn infrastructure book, the third of its four secondaries lines

Assets under management of the Secondaries Group by strategy, $bn, 30 September 2026

Source: Ares Management, third-quarter 2026 earnings presentation, slide 28, 29 October 2026; the structured solutions fund's close from Ares' release of 1 October 2026; the credit secondaries raise from its release of 13 January 2026, as Alternative Credit Investor reported it.

The other three managers gave plans more than numbers, and the table sets them side by side.

Source: Ares, earnings presentation of 29 October 2026; Blue Owl, third-quarter call of 29 October 2026, transcript by Investing.com; TPG, third-quarter call of 29 October 2026, transcript by TradingKey; CVC, Q3 2026 activity update, pp.2 and 4, 29 October 2026.

The next of these calls is Apollo's, on Tuesday 3 November, and the quarter of its S3 secondaries unit comes with it.

Seen before the press

TPG has set up a continuation fund for the first Credit Solutions fund of Angelo Gordon, the credit manager it bought in 2023. A Delaware partnership named TPG CSF I Continuation Master Fund was formed on 20 October and registered on Thursday. Its address is Maples in Wilmington, the one TPG's other vehicles use. Its name points to AG Credit Solutions Fund, which raised $1.8 billion in 2020 for "customized financing solutions" to companies in "idiosyncratic liquidity and capital structure situations". So the vehicle most probably gives that fund's investors a way out of the positions not yet repaid, with a new buyer behind it. It could also hold the credit secondaries deal TPG's Jon Winkelried described on Thursday, and nothing has been announced about it.

On the radar

• Saturday 31 October, Seoul. IMM Private Equity's deadline for foreign investors' proposals on its Air First continuation fund, with GIC and global secondaries managers weighing 300 billion to 500 billion won each.
• Monday 2 November, 3pm, London, then Tuesday 3 November, New York. HarbourVest Global Private Equity holds its private markets update two weeks before the vote on its $400 million tender. The next day Apollo reports its third quarter at 8:30am, and Cox Capital's bids for BCRED and HLEND shares expire at 5pm.
• Thursday 5 November, London. NBPE's capital markets day, where Neuberger's team and TA Associates present the plan after Friday's sales.
• Week of 9 November, Luxembourg, then Friday 27 November, New York. Partners Group Global Value SICAV's shareholders vote on splitting the fund in two. On 27 November the US fund's next offer closes, for 5% of its units at the 31 December value.
•